Monday, February 28, 2011

Artillery ranges and tank maneuvers on fragile grasslands. Depopulated farm towns, suitable for urban warfare exercises for thousands of troops. A military installation the size of Massachusetts, sprawling across southern Colorado from Trinidad to the Kansas border. If you're going to plan, plan big. And the U.S. Army's plans for expansion of its Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site have an audacity that's hard to beat.The 2004 planning document states that the PCMS is ideally situated to become a training center for all the armed services -- and allied forces as well: "Given its size, remote location, diverse terrain, and infrastructure, PCMS far surpasses the training experience of any Combat Training Center in CONUS." (That's the contiguous United States, soldier.)

The move would involve displacing a population of at least 17,000 civilians and transferring the Comanche National Grasslands from U.S. Forest Service to military control, but the study predicted that holding large-scale training exercises there "will be a positive change and natural wildlife habitation possibilities [will] increase."

But then Verizon doesn’t just throw cash to ultra-right politicians. It throws their corporate weight here and there to oppose freedoms you care about. For instance, Verizon fought hard against net neutrality and went so far as to sue the Federal Communications Commission in January to get rid of the rules to protect an open Internet. Why, unless they’re inherently repressive? Also, Verizon once rejected NARAL Pro-Choice America’s request to send text messages on the Verizon network, saying it had a right to block messages it deemed were “controversial or unsavory.” When did Verizon Wireless start playing Big Brother?

Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern PolicyAIPAC dealings will soon emerge; how Harman and Alberto Gonzalez avoided legal and professional sanction but suffered damaged reputations nonetheless; the down-the-memory-hole scandals of Niger uranium forgeries and the Office of Special Plans; why the juicy tidbits revealed in Steve Rosen’s dismissed lawsuit in Washington, D.C., discusses Jane Harman’s resignation from Congress, amid speculation that more information on her should be enough for a multi-count indictment of AIPAC (Israel Lobby); and the uber-class of people so far beyond the rule of law, they can never be held to account.

Most major newspapers and media outlets in the world are owned by a handful of multinational corporate giants, who together control the content of what is distributed to the masses. But a recent report in The Seattle Times questions the influence the world's most powerful foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), has on the media as well.

Globalization and de-industrialization were the opening moves of the trap- privatization is the trap closing on our necks. Of course the rest of the world has been experiencing all this for a long time; but we are no longer the minor beneficiaries of American Imperialism, we have become the next course in its move to devour the world.- Claudia

William Engdahl’s latest book is another awesome exploration and explanation of the boldness and failings of Anglo-American global strategy over most of the past century and a half. Engdahl recalls in his introduction a statement from the 1970′s attributed to then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a protégé of the powerful Rockefeller circles, in which he declared, “If you control the oil, you control entire nations; if you control the food, you control the people; if you control the money, you control the entire world.”

There’s a certain irony to my reading this book while waiting at the Food Stamp office. I’m part of an increasing number suffering under the New World Order’s systematic destruction of the planet’s middle classes so as to concentrate wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer families. While global uprisings now threaten global governance under a single currency, scheming rulers have long anticipated this reaction. In The Global Economic Crisis, we learn exactly how a planet-wide military dictatorship plans to enforce its feudal vision.

Dylcia Pagan is a Puerto Rican freedom fighter and Independista, who spent nearly 20 years in Federal prisons on charges of seditious conspiracy for her role in the underground wing of the Puerto Rican independence movement. One of 11 Puerto Rican political prisoners granted clemency in 1999 by President Clinton, she was paroled to Puerto Rico, where she has continued to struggle against U.S. colonialism nonviolently.

The sudden demonization of Qadaffi in the corporate media and much of the alternative media is reminiscent of the demonization of Saddam Hussein, comparing him to Adolph Hitler, etc., preparatory to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Whatever faults Hussein might have had, he led a far more progressive and civilized society than what Iraq has today. Fidel Castro and President Hugo Chavez are being maligned by the corporate/government media and much of the well-intentioned but naive alternative media as being indifferent to the people who have died in the Libyan crisis. But in fact, this is what Fidel stated about the Libyan crisis:"The riots in Libya were inspired by the United States. Every hour an invasion by U.S. troops could be expected. US will send them to 'protect the Libyan people'. But in reality, they need only the Libyan oil."

The Western-concocted Disneyworld narrative that King Hamad was "reform-minded", interested in "advancing democracy" and "preserving stability", was totally shattered by his mercenary army firing live ammo from anti-aircraft guns from APCs at protesters who were carrying flowers, or American Bell helicopters overhead chasing people and shooting at them.

As the wave of popular uprisings has spread across the Arab world, a flurry of articles have appeared suggesting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez could be the next “dictator” to be overthrown.Such arguments follow a pattern in the corporate media of slandering the Chavez government and the revolutionary process it leads.
They aim to conceal the real threat that haunts imperialism: that the Arab world may follow the example of Venezuela and other countries in Latin America — and break away from Western hegemony.

BUT, Gaddafi opposed the New World Order, and so his country has to be wrecked.On 27th February 2011 we read that the UK's notorious SAS are in Libya.
"The Special Forces soldiers landed in two C130 Hercules military transport aircraft on a landing strip ... south of the eastern port of Benghazi..."A senior source confirmed that an advance party of SAS men had been in Libya for several days...
"The SAS party had sneaked into Libya in plain clothes on commercial flights...

"...the range of what is permissible is slowly expanding -- over the opposition of the elites and our mainstream TV and press. The reason is to be found in the new media, which is gradually eroding the monopoly long enjoyed by the corporate media to control the spread of information and popular ideas. Wikileaks is so far the most obvious, and impressive, outcome of that trend....The consequences are already tangible across the Middle East, which has suffered disproportionately under the oppressive rule of empire. The upheavals as Arab publics struggle to shake off their tyrants are also stripping bare some of the illusions the western media have peddled to us. Empire, we have been told, wants democracy and freedom around the globe. And yet it is caught mute and impassive as the henchmen of empire unleash US-made weapons against their peoples who are demanding western-style freedoms."

In the second part of his investigation, Hank Albarelli peels off another layer of the ongoing Operation Paperclip cover up and unveils one of its darker legacies. Working with Paperclip Nazi scientists and building on the results of their often deadly research, the CIA tested LSD psychoactive drugs on almost 7,000 unwitting U.S. citizens over a 20-year period. Those LSD experiments, and Paperclip itself, were among the first manifestations of what became a guiding principle of the Cold War right to the present day, that the ends justifies the means.

Gilad Atzmon is an outstandingly charming man. He is often described by music critics as one of the finest contemporary jazz saxophonists. But Atzmon is more than just a musician: for those who follow events in the Middle East, he is considered to be one of the most credible voices amongst Israeli opponents. In the last decade he has relentlessly exposed and denounced barbarian Israeli policies. Just before his departure on a European Spring Tour, “The Tide Has Changed “, with his band the Orient House Ensemble, he spoke to Silvia Cattori.

If the Arab Indigenous nations can bring down the dictators, can they unite? Indigenous are united by blood to our families, clans, communities, nations and tribes. Our natural affiliation can’t be erased. Colonial relationships are artificial, changeable and will die out.Are there similarities between us and the Arabs? Bankers crave the resources of the Indigenous people worldwide. They fear we may once again govern ourselves.

The triumph of the Bolivarian Revolution brought sovereign and unity with the people to the Venezuelan Armed Forces, breaking the US military unit, said on Friday the president of the Parliamentary Committee on Defense Rafael Gil.
Today, we are more sovereign than ever, because we wiped out the interference of an empire determined to control the country's natural resources, especially its oil, said in statements to Prensa Latina.

This month marks forty years since the founding of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) in Toribío, Colombia. It might be a sign of the times that, especially these days, celebrations are often bittersweet. This editorial highlights both the bitter and the sweet of the CRIC's first forty years, as well as the challenges underpinning the next.

A critical key to resisting fascism's rise is learning to recognize it in its new guises—even when it paradoxically employs anti-fascist rhetoric (Obama as Hitler, ATF agents as "jack-booted thugs," Hitler as an advocate of gun control, etc.) As Huey Long, Louisiana's populist governor and senator of the 1930s, is supposed to have said: "Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.”That's the way it could work here. The most reactionary elements of the white working class (and downwardly-mobile middle class) will get ethnic scapegoats and the promise of a nation purged of foreign contagions as they are used to beat back the progressive elements of the working class—until such time as their work is done and they have outlived their usefulness to the ruling class. By which time we will all be under some form of American fascism that will almost certainly call itself something other than "fascism."

UAVs are a key export of Israel’s arms industry. A number of Israeli firms export drones, most prominently Aeronautics Defense Systems, Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries. UAVs are commonly used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and targeting missions. More recently some models have begun to carry armed payloads.

(PIC) Israeli municipality teams bulldozed on Sunday morning a Palestinian home in Z'rura village in the Negev, occupied since 1948, in line with a campaign of demolitions in that village, local sources said.

Israel’s Interior Ministry has revoked the permit for the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, The Rt Revd Suheil Dawani, to live in Jerusalem, and has refused requests to reinstate it, in spite of protests by Anglican authorities in the West specifically the United States. The Bishop is a native of the Holy Land and has spent most of his life and ministry here, but cannot obtain either citizenship or legal residence in Israel, since he was born in Nablus ... Since the Bishop has of course remained at his post, in Jerusalem, without the permit, he could be arrested at any moment, be put on trial for being in Israel illegally, be sentenced to a prison term – or simply be forcibly removed from Jerusalem.

(PIC)Secretary-General of the Islamic-Christian Commission Dr. Hassan Khater has said an Israeli tourism conference to be held in Jerusalem the coming month marks Israel's success in promoting the holy city as a capital for all Jews. Israel will stage a conference running from February 29 until March 31 that promotes Jewish tourism in Jerusalem. It is also behind a virtual reality website that shows Jerusalem without its Arab features.

PIC) Palestinian activists sat in at the Ain al-Halwa school in the northern Jordan Valley on Saturday with hopes to raise awareness on the Israeli occupation which has rendered meeting the educational needs of Area C impossible. The "save the Jordan Valley" campaign, one of the sit-in organizers, said Israeli policies have hampered the building of schools, and military checkpoints have restricted movement of teachers and students. Israeli authorities have pursued a policy of destruction of private and public facilities including schools, said Wahba Usfour, a sit-in coordinator, citing as an example what happened in Khirbet Tana, a village east of the city of Nablus with a population of about 300.

[Photos] Palestinian and international organizations and activists shared our opening day of Ein Il Hilwe tent school. Although the occupation army threatened the Ein Il Hilwe community of demolition the night before, the community was very happy to celebrate the opening of their tent school last Saturday ... The Bedouin community of Ein Il Hilwe is located in the north of the Jordan Valley. The children from this community as well as from the neighboring communities used to attend school in Tayasir for which they had to travel through the difficult Tayasir checkpoint. On a daily basis the children were facing harassment from the soldiers when trying to get to and from school. Some days children were forced off the bus and were left to walk the 13 km back home on the dangerous main road.

(Ma‘an)Medical officials in Hebron said an 11-year-old girl from the city was transferred to Hadassa Hospital in Israel on Sunday, after she was struck down by a settler car at the Beit Ainun junction. The girl, identified as Amani Al-Mutawer, was said to have been walking to school when she was hit. Her condition was described as moderate.

Israel's own people increasingly targeted by Jewish state / Tim King http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february262011/sahar-vardi-tk.php

One of Israel's activists for humanity takes a soldier's rifle butt to the cheek [in Hebron rally]; is it time now for the People's Revolution of Israel? ... Today we're talking about 20-year old Israeli activist Sahar Vardi; whose appearance was marred on this occasion by the actions of an Israeli soldier, who drove the butt of the rifle into her face ... As Ha'aretz relates, Sahar Vardi was dubbed a traitor and the daughter of a traitor by far-right groups in Israel. Her father is Amiel Vardi, a researcher and lecturer in classics at the Hebrew University. He is one of the founders of Ta'ayush, an Arab and Jewish political activist group that demonstrates on the issue of mass detentions of Palestinians that also engages in humanitarian aid activity. His reward for trying to help Palestinian farmers reach their vineyards during the grape harvest was a bullet from an Israeli settler.

The quality of water in Gaza is deteriorating rapidly, and until another source of water is found, the population in Gaza remains at risk as there is little that can be done as long as the Israel policy of closure continues. Ninety percent of the water available in Gaza coming from the coastal aquifer is undrinkable ... The treatment of Gaza’s waste water cannot progress as long as Israel restricts basic building materials and adequate levels of fuel and electricity, and, with a rising population over-burdening the capacity of the current facilities. Now it looks like the closure will imperil Israel as the bacteria infested untreated waste water dumped into the sea off Gaza will inevitably flow to Israeli beaches and further up north and beyond.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasted certain Arab rulers for their brutal behavior towards their own citizens in the recent uprisings in their countries, and reminded that these regional dictators are butchering their people with American weapons."Today dictators of the region kill their people with the weapons they have purchased from the US and its allies," Ahmadinejad said on Monday. "The US administration and its allies should explain why they have imposed autocracy and dictatorship on these regional nations for the last 30 to 40 years," he added.

African mercenaries hired by the Gaddafi regime to kill Libyan protesters would be immune from prosecution for war crimes due to a clause in this weekend’s UN resolution that was demanded by the United States.But it has been widely alleged that many of the attacks were in fact carried out by foreign mercenaries hired by Colonel Gaddafi. And the US insisted that the UN resolution was worded so that no one from an outside country that is not a member of the ICC could be prosecuted for their actions in Libya.

[if true then this begs the question,are these mercenaries actually hired by qadaffi or united states,to look like they were hired by qaddafi?

Earth is currently in a long-term warming trend. After a regional nuclear war, though, average global temperatures would drop by 2.25 degrees F (1.25 degrees C) for two to three years afterward, the models suggest.

[This is not a joke! These assholes are suggesting that if the United States (still the only nation to actually use nuclear weapons against population centers) were to nuke somebody, it would save us all fro the peril of human-caused global warming!

The appeal, which came in the form of a letter signed by 40 policy analysts, including more than a dozen former senior officials who served under President George W. Bush, was organised and released by the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a two-year-old neo-conservative group that is widely seen as the successor to the more-famous – or infamous – Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

[If these people truly feel that war with Libya is necessary, they should be willing to personally lead their own children into the invasion. Sadly, we are out of the camouflage uniforms in their sizes, but we do have some day-glo orange prison jumpsuits I am sure would be equally comfortable as they charge the shores of Tripoli!

In particular, it called for Washington to press NATO to "develop operational plans to urgently deploy warplanes to prevent the regime from using fighter jets and helicopter gunships against civilians and carry out other missions as required; (and) move naval assets into Libyan waters" to "aid evacuation efforts and prepare for possible contingencies;" as well as "(e)stablish the capability to disable Libyan naval vessels used to attack civilians." Among the letter's signers were former Bush deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Bush's top global democracy and Middle East adviser; Elliott Abrams; former Bush speechwriters Marc Thiessen and Peter Wehner; Vice President Dick Cheney's former deputy national security adviser, John Hannah, as well as FPI's four directors: Weekly Standard editor William Kristol; Brookings Institution fellow Robert Kagan; former Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor; and former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and Ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman.

In an IAEA report issued on Friday, the agency reaffirmed that Iran’s nuclear program has never been diverted to nuclear weapons production, the Press TV correspondent in Vienna reported.But the report still says Tehran must halt its uranium enrichment activities, as demanded by four United Nations Security Council resolutions.Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, stated that the demand is politically motivated, saying, “When all nuclear activities are accounted for and there is no diversion to military purposes… then what is the justification for referring to an old obsolete request of suspension.”

As the wave of popular uprisings has spread across the Arab world, a flurry of articles have appeared suggesting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez could be the next “dictator” to be overthrown.Such arguments follow a pattern in the corporate media of slandering the Chavez government and the revolutionary process it leads.
They aim to conceal the real threat that haunts imperialism: that the Arab world may follow the example of Venezuela and other countries in Latin America — and break away from Western hegemony.

A global banking cartel has looted nation after nation, the world over, the United States is no exception. They’ve looted trillions from the US public and now they are trying to cut the throat of the public unions. While in the process of attacking private-sector workers and small businesses throughout the country, they are also cracking down on the last layer of worker protections within the public-sector.
The same economic central planners that have systematically exploited workers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia and Asia, have exploited American workers as well. One-tenth of one percent of the population got luxurious life boats, while 99.9% of us are being left behind to drown in a sea of debt and social upheaval.

"Like the U.N. and Europe, the U.S. sees the world as two spheres---The Gentile sphere where all divine and international laws apply and the Jewish/Israeli Sphere where no such laws, ethics, or morality apply; thereby reinforcing Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s statement that the basic function of a goy, a derogatory word for a gentile, is to serve Jews."“Israel may have the RIGHT to put others on Trial, but Certainly NO ONE has the Right to put the Jewish People and the State of Israel on Trial.”
-- Ariel Sharon, Quoted by BBC, March 25, 2001

It is quite startling to realise that a special room had been set up to receive the dead of the July 7th bombings in a temporary morgue built on army land, the contract for which (see [1] below) arrived on the contractor’s desk on July 6th, the day before the massacres.All the bodies of the dead were taken and cryogenically stored here.Not until the Inquest, five years later, did startled lawyers acting on behalf of the victim-families get to hear, that NO POST MORTEMS had been performed on the dead.Let us repeat this astonishing statement, the better to realise our own astounded bafflement:NO POST MORTEMS HAD BEEN PERFORMED ON THE DEAD.

Hamas movement in Gaza on Sunday accused Israel of releasing false news about Palestinian rocket attacks, stressing that Hamas is in contact with Gaza-based factions to maintain cease-fire with Israel.In a statement, Hamas Interior Ministry said the "false accounts" aim at preparing international mood for a military escalation in the Gaza Strip. They are also meant to cover " Israeli measures to make Jerusalem Jewish and the construction of settlements in the West Bank."

Israel tried to buy U.S. Intelligence officers and Assets— though she emphatically denies, under any circumstances, ever accepting money from the Israelis herself.
Whether or not other agents within the government did take bribes is unknown at this time.For the first time on record, it has been revealed that a known Mossad agent tried to bribe a U.S. asset into handing over Iraq’s collection of banking records on Al Qaeda’s financial pipeline by phoning her home in Maryland while she was traveling in Baghdad, and promising to deliver a suitcase full of cash to any city in the world in exchange for the papers.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Hey goys and girls, are you interested in supporting terrorism, violating international law, stealing other people’s property and being in general a smug narcissistic asshole and getting the US taxpayer to subsidize this behavior? Of course you are, who wouldn’t be? So you will be most interested in a new occasional feature that the tuyuur here at Mantiq al-Tayr have come up with called “Support Your Own Illegal Israeli Settlement”. Once every couple of weeks or so we will choose a nice Israeli settlement built on Palestinian land and we’ll give you some links about it so you can learn about what a great place it is.

Friday, February 25, 2011

The revolt in the Arab world is not merely against a resident dictator but a worldwide economic tyranny designed by the US Treasury and imposed by the US Agency for International Development, the IMF and World Bank, which have ensured that rich countries like Egypt are reduced to vast sweatshops, with half the population earning less than $2 a day. The people’s triumph in Cairo was the first blow against what Benito Mussolini called corporatism, a word that appears in his definition of fascism.

Few Americans remember Operation Cast Lead. Jews in America were told Israel had to finish off Hamas in order to protect itself. We can’t get into exactly how fanciful and utterly false everything American Jews are told or even the childishly ignorant statements President Obama and Secretary Clinton make on a regular basis. They make me cringe. They should make all of us here in America ashamed, Jews and non-Jews alike.

So if we Americans are ever to regain control over our destinies we have to start by removing the poison from our body politic. A good start would be by first registering and then marginalizing AIPAC and any other organizations like it that represent pernicious foreign interests. It would also be nice to send Weiner, Lowey, Ros-Lehtinen, and the 67 GOP freshmen representatives who want to keep shoveling money to Israel packing in the next election. And also Obama and Susan Rice since they don’t appear to know what country they live in. We really don’t need their kind of hyphenated patriotism anymore and we certainly don’t need vetoes at the UN that demonstrate to everyone that we are a nation of amoral hypocrites.

Tim McCurley said in an interview that the city sent layoff notices to everyone in the fire department to comply with a clause in the firefighters' union contract requiring a 30-day notice. He said some or all of the firefighters could lose their jobs, and that the police department faces layoffs too.

[As this video proves, there is a lot of crookedness in the state legislatures. Now we learn that the Wisconsin budget bill was passed in the dead of night, supposedly by a voice vote instantly tallied on the digital readout, but failing to match the number of voting legislators present. Clearly Walker has pulled a fast one, and were I a citizen of Wisconsin I would not accept this result as legitimate, nor would I allow Walker to remain in the governor's office for one more day.

Ms Jackson admitted she "expected more of Israel. Israel is not a little country standing alone against armies of people who hate it. If the government want support, they must stop building settlements, take down the wall and start letting necessities like cement into Gaza. I'm not anti-Israel but I am anti the Israeli government."

Can something good come out of a bad situation? It looks like it is possible. Ian McEwan has been in Israel for the past week to receive the Jerusalem Prize for Literature. He was urged not to come by activists in the Boycott from Within Movement to refuse the prize and refuse to come here…. but he did. He tried to justify his position by being critical of Israeli policies and taking part in the weekly demonstration at Sheikh Jarrah last Friday.
Last night he donated the $10,000 in Prize Money to an Israeli/Palestinian Peace group, Combatants For Peace. For this, he must be commended ….. it might result in the ‘Powers That Be’ being more selective of Prize Recipients in the future, but for now, something good did come out of a bad situation.

Tens of thousands of Yemenis demonstrated after the main weekly Muslim prayers around the country on Friday to demand that veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down.In the capital, thousands poured into a main square near Sanaa University, many of them women, chanting "Out, out!" and "God bears witness to your acts, Abdullah," an AFP correspondent reported.
Police set up checkpoints close by.The protesters have dubbed Friday "the beginning of the end" for Saleh's regime which has been in power in Sanaa since 1978."There is no solution unless the regime steps down," prayer leader Sheikh Abdullah Satar told the faithful over a megaphone.

Militants in Pakistan attacked tankers bringing fuel to Nato and U.S. forces in Afghanistan today, killing four people and causing a massive night-time blaze.A group of around 15 militants armed with rockets and guns stormed a roadside terminal on the outskirts of the north-western city of Peshawar. At least 12 tankers were set ablaze in the attack, said police officer Liaquat Ali Khan. The dead men were drivers or their assistants, he said.

America needs to cease all aid, credit and transfers to Israel. This same policy needs to be applied to the entire region. Resist any attempts to expand and deploy, commitments, guarantees and involvements with the Zionist regime. Cut off all military exports and intelligence cooperation with Mossad. Our obligation, as a country, is to our own interests and people. Examine the ideology of Zionism and the background of those who control Israel, and compare their conception for humanity and “The CHOSEN”, and ask if you benefit from their plan of political fairness?

The corporate media has repeatedly told the American people that we went to war with Iraq to fight terrorism, while some in the alternative community believe it was over Iraq’s extensive oil fields.This could not have been further from the truth.Multiple U.S. assets secured deals that would have brought America billions of dollars without killing anyone.This Excerpt from Susan’s book, Extreme Prejudice, The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq, and the documentation that she has provided proves without a doubt that the United States went to war with Iraq not for oil or to stop terrorism, but to nation build and essentially create a perpetual state of war.

[ when i worked for a mission to UN, I myself came across documents suggesting that the case of iraq sanctions was to be re-debated ,as international community was considering abandoning them altogether...the most vocal opponents were of course ,the ISRAELI MISSION...

Libya's Qaddafi stands between the United States and their campaign of destabilization and regime change across the oil laden region. Not only does this stall the Anglo-American agenda, it also sets a precedence of defiance other sovereign nations may duplicate under similar US-backed instability.There is no doubt that the unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, and now Libya is US-backed. Libyan opposition leader Ibrahim Sahad of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) is literally sitting in front of the White House in Washington D.C. giving interviews, repeating verbatim the talking points covered by propaganda outfits like BBC, CNN, Fox News, and AlJazeera. Meanwhile, a myriad of US organizations are working in tandem with Sahad's calls for UN, EU, US, and NATO intervention

troubling findings that two victims were killed before any IDF soldiers boarded the ship, in fire from helicopters, that the youngest victim, a Turkish-American, was killed execution style after being wounded in the leg, and that a photographer was killed with a laser-guided weapon while taking photographs

Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi announced that the Iranian security forces have arrested a CIA collaborator and a member of the Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist organization (MKO) in connection with February 14 unrests in Tehran.

This judgment is one more symptom of the ideological degeneration of the Indian judicial system. The judgment in the Babri Masjid case resorted to rule of faith in place of rule of law. In this case, the judge says that Piyush Guha has to prove that he was arrested from Mahindra Hotel on 1 May, not on 6 May and the letters were planted on him new through the prima facie evidence was in favour of Guha. The judge shifted the burden of proof to the accused, which violated the basics of the criminal justice system. The judgment indicates that the Indian judiciary is moving backward.

A Hebrew-language newspaper in Israel claims that the Israeli government has instructed its embassy in Washington to boycott Jewish organisations in America which oppose Israel's official policies, particularly with regard to settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The Libyan Air Force is made up of some French F-1 fighters; some Sukhois (old ones) and some old MiGs. There are some helicopter gunships that need to be smashed. It would be 20 minutes work for the U.S. Air Force or, better yet, for a combined NATO force. Is it our responsibility?Yes it is, because we (collectively NATO, but each NATO country in its own way) have been coddling this crazy man for the last eight years on the assumption that handing over his nuclear program in 2003 when he thought he was next on President Bush's "hit list" meant he had miraculously reformed and joined the ranks of civilized rulers. We swept under the rug Gaddafi's many crimes, especially his role in ordering the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. The British, in the scummiest way imaginable, helped arrange for the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the operative killer on "mercy grounds," that also paved the way for lucrative contracts for British companies.

When CIA-agent Raymond Davis gunned down two Pakistani civilians in broad daylight on a crowded street in Lahore, he probably never imagined that the entire Washington establishment would spring to his defense. But that’s precisely what happened. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mike Mullen, John Kerry, Leon Panetta and a number of other US bigwigs have all made appeals on Davis’s behalf. None of these stalwart defenders of “the rule of law” have shown a speck of interest in justice for the victims or of even allowing the investigation to go forward so they could know what really happened. Oh, no. What Clinton and the rest want, is to see their man Davis packed onto the next plane to Langley so he can play shoot-’em-up someplace else in the world.

Does Clinton know that after Davis shot his victims 5 times in the back, he calmly strode back to his car, grabbed his camera, and photographed the dead bodies? Does she know that the two so-called “diplomats” who came to his rescue in a Land Rover (which killed a passerby) have been secretly spirited out of the country so they won’t have to appear in court? Does she know that the families of the victims are now being threatened and attacked to keep them from testifying against Davis? Here’s a clip from Thursday’s edition of The Nation…

"Israel's real challenge is not the Palestinian voice per se, but Israel's own behavior. Even if there is no Palestinian voice altogether, Israel's war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank are so revolting that even well-financed media campaigns cannot hide their atrociousness in their entirety," he said.

Pakistani and Indian newspapers are reporting that Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor in jail in Lahore facing murder charges for the execution-slayings of two young men believed to by Pakistani intelligence operatives, was actually involved in organizing terrorist activities in Pakistan. As the Express Tribune, an English-language daily that is linked to the International Herald Tribune, reported on Feb. 22: "The Lahore killings were a blessing in disguise for our security agencies who suspected that Davis was masterminding terrorist activities in Lahore and other parts of Punjab," a senior official in the Punjab Police claimed. "His close ties with the TTP [the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan] were revealed during the investigations," he added. "Davis was instrumental in recruiting young people from Punjab for the Taliban to fuel the bloody insurgency." Call records of the cellphones recovered from Davis have established his links with 33 Pakistanis, including 27 militants from the TTP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi sectarian outfit, sources said...

Working women and men, I stand with you, because I am one of you!Some people call me the “Peace Mom,” because of my unwavering work and stand for peace. In 2004, my son Casey made the ultimate sacrifice for war profiteering and imperial hubris; he was only in the Army because he wanted to take pressure off of his family for college tuition. Because I am one of you, I know that working women and men make substantial sacrifices every day of their lives.

Last week Kamitsuki Toyohisa, the Japanese Foreign Ministry counselor for European Affairs, said that the relationship between his country and Russia is “at its worst point in decades.”In fact the dramatic ratcheting up of rhetoric – and corresponding actions – on both sides over the Kuril Islands are more evocative of the situation preceding the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and the two nations’ conflict on the Manchurian border in 1938-1939 than any previous developments after the Second World War.

Of all the struggles going on in North Africa and the Middle East right now, the most difficult to unravel is the one in Libya. After Egypt, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya focuses on the maelstrom unfurling next door and mulls over Libya’s ominous future. Is “manufactured destruction” or creative destruction at work? Is oil-rich Libya being set up for a civil war to pave the way for a U.S. and NATO armed intervention? Qaddafi is an independent Arab dictator; one should be opposed to dictatorship, but should also not forget about foreign tutelage.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs reveals that Agent Orange was tested and used in Florida and Texas as early as 1944. But even after it was banned in the US, it was sprayed in Canada.In Canada, Agent Orange was sprayed in British Columbia during the 1980s. At Kapuskasing, Ontario, Agent Orange was sprayed about 20 kilometers from a First Nations community.Agent Orange spraying in Gagetown and surrounding communities in Canada had far reaching effects, since soldiers from around the world trained there.The spraying at Kapuskasing reveals the pattern of the US and Canada of targeting areas with Indian communities. Kapuskasing was not only the site of Agent Orange spraying, but was also the site of a WWI prisoner of war camp and later a power plant.In a pattern of toxic genocide, areas near and on Indian communities have been used as prisoner of war camps, power plant sites and toxic waste dumps.

Finally, anthropologist Nicole Fabricant, discussing Bolivia’s “civic coup,” shows how the right wing in Bolivia—like the rebelling police in Ecuador, anti-Chávez forces in Venezuela, and los blancos in Honduras—has borrowed from the left’s playbook in its efforts to stymie participatory and redistributive democracy. The latest tactic, she notes, is the resort to a kinder, gentler human rights discourse, which positions the country’s opposition leaders as righteous victims of an authoritarian government. She also highlights the ongoing role of the U.S. government in providing financial, logistical, and political support to golpistas (putschists) throughout the region.

African governments, once the product of our liberation struggles, are ‘more accountable to Northern governments and to the international financial institutions than they are to citizens’, says Firoze Manji.

It’s true that the Ethiopian ‘political opposition is weak and disunited’, but ‘Western governments seem to be conveniently oblivious of the reasons for the disarray in the opposition’, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam.Western donors are very much in touch with the average Ethiopian, that is in the same way as they were in touch with the average Tunisian, Egyptian, Yemeni, Bahraini and so on. They were so in touch with the average citizens of these countries that they anticipated and correctly predicted the recent popular uprisings. That was the reason President Obama "applauded" the people for throwing Ben Ali out of Tunisia. The U.S. was so in touch with the realities of the average Egyptian over the past 30 years that President Obama and his foreign policy team froze in stunned silence, flat-footed and twiddling their thumbs and scratching their heads for days before staking out a position on the popular uprising. They could not bring themselves to use the "D" words (dictator, democracy) to describe events in Egypt. Western governments were also very much in touch with Hosni Mubarak floating his ship of state on an ocean of corruption and repression with billions of dollars in military and economic aid. They are very much in touch with Zenawi; after all he is the "guy you can do business with," a partner. Truth be told, they have done tons of business with him over the past 20 years, no less than $26 billion!

In an interview with Rosa Moussauoi and Chantal Delmas, Demba Moussa Dembele discusses Western-imposed policies for Africa, the faces of contemporary imperialism, the notion of China’s ‘yellow peril’ and reinvigorating the struggle against neoliberalism.

In recent years all sorts of European institutions beyond oil companies and security agencies made their own deals with the dictatorship in Tripoli. The London School of Economics accepted a £1.5m grant from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation for a ‘virtual democracy centre’. The Foundation is headed by the same Saif al-Islam Gaddafi who recently went on to Libyan television to tell protestors that his father’s government would ‘fight to the last minute, until the last bullet’.

The Europe of colonialism, slavery and genocide has no claim to moral leadership in this world. The Europe that backed the Mubarak dictatorship for thirty years and the Ben Ali dictatorship for twenty-three years has no claim to moral leadership in this world. The Europe that helped to smash Iraq in the invasion of 2003 has no claim to moral leadership in this world. The Europe that refused to allow the Haitian people to elect a leadership of its choosing by supporting a coup against that leadership in 2004 has no claim to moral leadership in this world. The Europe that has been directly responsible for the documented deaths of almost 14,000 migrants since 1993 has no claim to moral leadership in this world.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Seventy New Yorkers protested the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s (IPO) performance at Carnegie Hall Tuesday evening, using chants, songs and street theater to highlight the IPO’s role in whitewashing Israel’s apartheid policies against the Palestinian people. The orchestra’s performances are being met with protests in six of the seven cities on its US tour

The wife of a Palestinian engineer has accused the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad of abducting her husband. Derar Abu Sisi went missing five days ago while visiting his Ukrainian wife in her home country. The Ukraine-based Al Raed Press said that Mr. Abu Sisi is the head of operations at the only power station in the Gaza Strip and was on a visit to Ukraine when he disappeared during a train journey on 18 February.

In view of the upcoming EU-Israel Association Council scheduled for 21 February 2011 we, the undersigned Palestinian human rights organisations committed to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), would like to express our grave concerns about the continuous deterioration of the human rights situation. In particular, we are alarmed by Israel’s protracted policies aimed at entrenching the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem ... The centre-of-life policy requires Palestinian residents of East-Jerusalem (whom Israel considers as “permanent residents” rather than citizens) to consistently prove that their “centre of life” is in East Jerusalem or else they risk losing their residency rights. Since this policy was adopted, in 1995, Israel has revoked the status of over 10,000 Palestinian residents of the city.

[EU should expell israel from its economic block ...but then again eu is owned by israel for most part...and eu itself for most part disregards international law as well...

Israel's parliament, the Knesset, is looking at a draft bill which proposes the abolition of Arabic as an official language in the Zionist state... The proposed law is one of a number of initiatives designed to undermine the status of Arabic, which is the mother-tongue of more than 1.25 million Palestinian citizens of the state, one-fifth of the population. A draft constitution, for example, supported by a number of Israeli institutions, also proposes the removal of Arabic's official status.

The five-nation Executive of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) today authorized the commencement of an immediate investigation into alleged mass graves of children at former Indian residential schools across Canada.ITCCS forensic assessment teams and investigators will arrive in Canada tomorrow to lead this inquiry in conjunction with local aboriginal elders.
The ITCCS action has been sparked by the refusal of Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper to respond to two letters from the ITCCS Executive asking that his government investigate the graves and commence criminal proceedings against the churches responsible for the deaths of children in the residential schools.

Let us fervently hope that the mysteries of the digital age will somehow summon the creative energy to manage the transition to sustainable and substantive democracy as brilliantly as it earlier staged the revolutionary uprisings.Early in the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings it seemed that winning was understood by the massed demonstrators to mean getting rid of the hated leader, of Ben Ali in the Tunisian case, and Mubarak in the Egyptian. But as the process deepened it make clear that more was being demanded and expected, and that this had to do with restoring the material and spiritual dignity of life in all its aspects.

War would be the greatest evil on earth even if it cost no money, used up no resources, left no environmental damage, expanded rather than curtailed the rights of citizens back home, and even if it accomplished something worthwhile. Of course, none of those conditions are possible.The idea that wars are waged out of humanitarian concern may not at first appear even worthy of response. Wars kill humans. What can be humanitarian about that? But look at the sort of rhetoric that successfully sells new wars:

Building on the momentum of the Egyptian revolution and the growing push for freedom and democracy by citizens throughout the region, a coalition of organizations and individuals from around the world are preparing for a march to Gaza on 4th March, 2011. The coalition will gather in the Egyptian port city of Al Arish and form a caravan to make the 32 km journey to the Rafah Border Crossing, disembarking to march the final kilometer to the border of the Gaza Strip. The objective of the march (www.Tahrir4Gaza.net) is to enter the strip with the full cooperation of Egyptian military officials and peacefully demand the permanent end of the Egyptian blockade of goods, services and building materials to the territory.

- GEORGIA: Hundreds of workers demonstrated outside the Georgia capitol yesterday, declaring their solidarity with striking Wisconsin workers. Some demonstrators wore “cheesehead” hats, a clear reference to a cultural tradition in Wisconsin.
– IDAHO: Hundreds of teachers marched against legislation that would layoff 770 teachers and leave schools severely understaffed.
– INDIANA: In Indiana, House Democrats fled the state, preventing a vote on legislation that would enact “right-to-work” laws that would’ve crippled the right to organize. After the House Democrats took off, hundreds of workers and students marched into the capitol building and staged a massive sit-in, pledging not to leave until the radical legislation was withdrawn. Yesterday, Indiana’s Main Street Movement scored its first victory as Republican lawmakers withdrew the anti-union bill. Indiana Democrats are refusing to come back until right-wing legislators withdraw legislation to undermine the state’s public education system.
– MONTANA: More than a thousand “conservationists, sportsmen, firefighters, teachers, correctional officers and others” descended on the Montana capitol to protest against “unprecedented GOP attacks on public services and education and laws that protect land, air, water and wildlife.” Students carried signs that read “Keep Us In School,” protesting crippling cuts to the state’s education system.
– OHIO: In Ohio, thousands of ordinary Americans who rely on the right to organize to earn good, middle class incomes are facing off with Wisconsin-style legislation backed by Gov. John Kasich (R). Nearly 10,000 protesters demonstrated in Columbus, Ohio, gaining the support of former Gov. Ted Strickland (D-OH) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). So many demonstrators showed up that the Ohio Highway Patrol was ordered to lock the doors of the state capitol to stop more demonstrators from getting into the building.
– TENNESSEE: Hundreds of Tennesseans gathered to protest a bill that would completely strip Tennesee teachers of collective bargaining rights. “What you have right now is 300 or so of us, standing and asking the state legislature to focus on what the priorities are right now, instead of attacking working people,” said Mary Mancini, executive director of Tennessee Citizen Action. “If they listen to us, well then that’s great. … If not, I can see this thing growing.”
– WASHINGTON: 2,000 demonstrators in Olympia, Washington, marched against the state’s proposed budget cuts that would harm students and middle class Washingtonians and in solidarity with workers in Wisconsin. “If Scott Walker succeeds in ending worker rights in Wisconsin, the birthplace of public servants’ liberty, it could happen here,” said Federation of State Employees President Carol Dotlich.

The American Petroleum Institute, the Big Oil industry’s chief lobbying organization, will start directly backing political candidates in the second quarter of this year. API, whose membership includes oil giants like Exxon-Mobil and Chevron, already spends tens of millions of dollars every year on lobbying, advertisements and Astroturf campaigns to support the the oil industry agenda. As CAP’s Dan Weiss wrote, API “wants to drill in fragile, sensitive places, keep government tax breaks, expand offshore drilling without reforms, and block global warming pollution reduction requirements.”

“This is adding one more tool to our toolkit,” Martin Durbin, API’s executive vice president for government affairs, told Bloomberg News. “At the end of the day, our mission is trying to influence the policy debate.” As Bloomberg pointed out, oil-supported political action committees like the Independent Petroleum Association of America overwhelmingly donate to Republican candidates.

People & Planet volunteers uncover £50 million from Oil, Arms and Big Pharma being channelled into UK universities. The Reclaim Research group conducted interviews and sent Freedom of Information requests to 17 universities and are starting to uncover the hidden connections between research and corporations at universities. The group aims to uncover, challenge, and change the ways in which universities are working to create profit.

Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State for International Development, announced on 15th February that the UK will continue to give £280 million a year to India as development aid. In a speech to Chatham House he argued, “it is in both India's interest and in Britain's interest for us to continue our highly successful collaboration on development,” but that, “we need to bring our development partnership up-to-date.

Canada has threatened to scrap a trade deal with the European Union if the EU persists with plans that would block imports of fuel from Canada's highly polluting tar sands extraction project. The EU is planning to reduce the carbon footprint of fuels used over the next decade and aims to help suppliers identify carbon-intensive imports.

In the light of the recent death of Jawaher Abu Rahma from tear gas inhalation, Ryan Olander takes a look at the history of systematic ‘non-lethal weapon’ usage by Israel against Palestinians. The article was originally posted on Corporate Watch's blog on Palestine, Corporate Occupation).

The UK government is creating a secret 'war plan' to put in place this summer, in case of a general strike or widespread industrial action as the cuts start to hit many sectors across the country and negotiations over public sector pensions break down. A special unit has been set up in the Cabinet Office with thousands of union-busting private workers being lined up ready to cross picket lines.

The government's decision to end child detention for immigration purposes in 2010 was the result of long years of campaigning by dedicated grassroots activists, as well as detainee support groups, NGOs and mainstream media. The end of this cruel and inhumane practice has, however, served to somehow legitimise the detention of adults. Fewer people now appear to have the political will to argue that immigration detention should be stopped altogether. Using Yarl's Wood, where children and their families were incarcerated, as a case study, this briefing is intended to demonstrate that the impact of immigration prisons on adult refugees and migrants is no less cruel, inhumane and, in many cases, unlawful.

On Thursday (17), Ashur Shamis, a Libyan opposition activist living in London and recruited by British intelligence (MI6) and American (CIA) was given information passed by the U.S. embassy in the United Kingdom and admitted, in an embarrassing form, that they have been using images of the protests in Bahrain and Yemen as if they were held in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libyan major cities, which unmasked the action mounted by the media and organs of communication who are working together against Libya and Iran

Libya is not like Egypt. Its leader, Moammar al-Gadhafi, has not been an imperialist puppet like Hosni Mubarak. For many years, Gadhafi was allied to countries and movements fighting imperialism. On taking power in 1969 through a military coup, he nationalized Libya’s oil and used much of that money to develop the Libyan economy. Conditions of life improved dramatically for the people. The Western media are basing a great deal of their reporting on supposed facts provided by the exile group National Front for the Salvation of Libya, which was trained and financed by the U.S. CIA. Google the front’s name plus CIA and you will find hundreds of references.

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i seek no recognition for any info on this blog.all information is purely for informational purposes.its a blog created with the sole intention of relating already well documented facts(and not well known facts)that are for everyone to share.Its in dedication to all the truthers ...